


A Priceless Gift

by framboise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Brothels, Co-Conspirators, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fake Pregnancy, Hand Feeding, Infertility, Medical Conditions, Morally Ambiguous Character, Older Man/Younger Woman, Protectiveness, Romance, Seduction, Sex Education, Sugar Daddy, Surrogacy, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-05 00:42:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14605446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/framboise/pseuds/framboise
Summary: Four years into Sansa's betrothal to the crown prince, when she has still yet to flower, Ned is asked to become Hand of the King. Sansa persuades her father to allow her to accompany him south, eager to see King's Landing and spend time with her betrothed. But when the Red Keep's maesters examine her, they discover that she has been born without a womb and can never bear children, and her betrothal is swiftly broken. Days later, her father is executed as a traitor, and any meagre remaining dream of a happy future is dashed completely.What to do with a barren Stark heir, the small council wonder, until an upstart lord offers to marry her himself. And if Littlefinger wishes to be blinded by his obsessive love of her mother, if he does not wish to have sons and grandsons to continue his house, then that is his own folly.And yet, only a few moons after the wedding, strange rumours spread through court - that the Master of the Coin has done something truly impossible, and made his barren little wife round with child...





	A Priceless Gift

**Author's Note:**

> *Content notes: This version of Sansa was born with MRKH syndrome. This story contains general gynaecological discussions and canon-typical attitudes towards infertility.
> 
> Jon Arryn dies four years after he does in the books and so most other events take place four years later too. Sansa is in her late teens in this story.
> 
> and if you want visuals for this fic, I made a graphic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/174077804072/four-years-into-sansas-betrothal-to-the-crown)

 

 

The day she was betrothed to the crown prince was the happiest of Sansa's young life, yet the days and weeks and moons afterwards seemed endlessly, unbearably, dull and boring. She had assumed that she was to journey south with her beloved Joffrey, to be fostered by the crown until she came of age, but the accident that had befallen Bran had spooked her mother into forbidding it. And even after Bran had awoken, and he was cantering about the yard in his specially adapted saddle or being wheeled whooping and laughing at top speed through the godswood by his brothers, her mother still did not budge, and her father could not be reasoned with either.

It was best that she remain with her family and be educated, prepared for her life at court and the role of future queen, outside of the distractions of King's Landing, they argued. More importantly than that, Sansa had heard them say to one another when she was eavesdropping, the crown was within its rights to marry her off to Joffrey the moment she arrived south and there were too many dangers to both mother and babe from bearing children too young. Sansa thought this was a stupid reason, for she could simply tell Joffrey that she could not bear children yet and he would not take his husbandly rights – rights which her mother had still not explained to her fully, saying that she would once she came of age.

Thus her parents were quite happy the first few years she did not flower, while Sansa herself was deeply disgruntled, staring each morning at the white of her smallclothes, the spotless linen ticking of her bed, with a weary sigh of disappointment. It was not just that she wished to wed and be a mother, it was also that Winterfell was a horrible place for a delicate maiden such as herself - muddy and wet and full of smelly boys and men, with nary a singer or a harp player to distract her. There were only so many daydreams one could create - scenes of her future wedding in the Sept of Baelor, its walls bedecked with garlands, the crowds eager for a sight of her in her wondrous new gown; or the end of her lying-in, when she brought her first babe out to the gardens to show him the roses whose blooms were almost as large as his tiny sweet-smelling head; listening to a singer in the great hall who made all weep with the romance of his words, the agonies of his voice - before a mind ran dry of pictures or the outside world intruded; such as Arya throwing something at her across the solar to annoy her, one of the boy's wolves chasing another past her and knocking her embroidery out of her hands, or the loud clash of sword against sword in the courtyard.

It was worse when, one year into her betrothal, her brother Jon left for the Wall. She had wept bitterly when he waved them goodbye from his horse next to father's, mostly because it was so very unfair that Jon was getting to leave Winterfell and have his dreams of joining the Night's Watch fulfilled while her dreams were endlessly delayed, but partly because they had become closer over the past few moons since Jon had started spending more time in the library, reading great tomes of northern histories while Sansa sat alongside him reading her own histories and songs. In fact the only person who was happy to see Jon go was her mother, whose weary frowns lightened once her husband's natural son had left, while the wolves themselves howled for many moons in mourning, even Lady who all agreed was the most well-mannered animal.

It was after two years of her betrothal, when she was now a year older than her mother had been when she first flowered, that concerns were first raised, though Sansa did not realise for some time that her mother was worried, only that she had started asking more questions about Sansa's health, the food she ate, the exercise she took, her weight. But when the Maester started giving Sansa tonics to take regularly and forbade her from a series of actions - swimming, jumping, taking rides longer than an hour - she realised that something might be wrong.

"Does this happen to other young women?" she asked her mother one day as they embroidered by the fire in her solar, Lady napping at her feet. "Do they need potions and tonics to flower?"

"A woman's first blood is an uncertain thing," her mother had replied, "the Maester says that sometimes the body gets sluggish and needs a nudge in the right direction. You have the body of a woman now, I'm sure your blood will arrive very soon."

Satisfied with her mother's explanation - for it was true that Sansa had the body of a woman, with wide hips and full breasts, and that she had noticed the watchful eyes of men in the keep - she dutifully followed the maester's instructions and also increased her visits to the sept to pray before the Mother, trying to keep herself more pious, purer of heart, than she knew she was - to be kind to those who needed kindness; to have greater patience with those who annoyed her, like Arya; to take alms to the poor houses in Winter Town.

And after six more moons had passed with not even a thumb-prick of blood in her smallclothes, and her mother had told her, with a confident voice marred by a furrowed brow, that she was hardly the oldest girl to ever bloom, Sansa began praying at the heart tree just as fervently as in the sept, fearing that the northern gods had been angered by her indifference towards them, wishing to hedge her bets.

Now the things she did to distract herself from imagining her future life at court became ways of distracting her from her own body's failings - she embroidered scenes so richly detailed that her eyes would ache and her fingertips bruise, her back would burn from being stooped over, and Lady would start to whine in a fashion most unlike her, trying to encourage her mistress to leave her sewing be for just a little while; she gathered so many berries that every house in Winter Town had at least one jar of her jams; she memorized so many lists of minor houses and histories that her head felt stuffed with names and faces of strangers, her dreams full of tragedies of the past so vivid she would cry when she woke.

When more than three years had passed, and Arya herself had flowered - to weeping from both girls, the one who did not wish to ever marry, and the other who was so jealous of her younger sister that she felt a burn in her gut that made her want to scream and scream - gossip was starting to spread loud enough for Sansa to hear that something was wrong with the eldest daughter, that she may well be barren. The potions and tonics and strange powders that now arrived from Oldtown were enough to fill several whole chests, and Sansa suffered their effects - the purging, the headaches, the colouring of her tongue, the swelling-up of her ankles, the dizziness and the rashes - without a single complaint.

She dared not ask her parents what the letters that arrived from court said; if her betrothed - who she imagined was now a strong young man, with a square jaw and gleaming shoulder length hair, a muscled chest like the best fighters she watched in the yard at Winterfell - was disappointed in her, because she knew he must be, no young man in the prime of his life would wish for a lengthy engagement while his peers were busy marrying and having their first babes.

Her siblings treated her more kindly, which only made her want to cry, Rickon bringing her flowers he had picked in the woods, Bran asking her to wheel him about the godswood even though she could not push him as fast as Robb could, Arya willingly sitting with her to embroider and talk with her of songs, Robb being so gentle when he hugged her or kissed her cheek in greeting, even Jon sending her sweet letters from the Wall full of dull descriptions of the northern ice.

It was Robb's own wedding day that was one of the hardest days for her to bear - the knowledge that Alys Karstark was a true woman, where Sansa still was not, that she would within moons bear Robb's children; the japes and jeers she heard during the bedding ceremony; the looks and words she heard about herself - but it did bring the small comfort of the arrival of Bellena Wayn, a widowed niece of her grandmother Minisa, who had spent time at court in her youth and asked her parents if she could stay at Winterfell for a few moons to tutor Sansa.

It was Bellena, a jovial woman with a deep laugh that brought Sansa out of her everpresent worry, who finally told Sansa about what happened between husbands and wives in the marriage bed, and who made Sansa question some of the things her Septa and parents had previously taught her - that it was not always wise to be entirely honourable, that many people did not have her best interests at heart, that she was a powerful pawn and would be used thus at court if she did not keep her wits about her, that she must earn the love of allies and smallfolk and never demand it.

It was Bellena too who suggested what some of the letters from Oldtown maesters also did, that southron weather might be better for Sansa's constitution, that her body and womb was not suited to the chill of the north. Sansa clung to this idea hungrily. For was it not true that she had always wished to live in the south, had she not dreamed of it since she was a child, did the gods not arrange for her to marry a southron son?

Bellena returned to the Riverlands before Sansa's parents made their decision, but a few moons later momentous news arrived at Winterfell which meant that Sansa would finally have her wish fulfilled.

Jon Arryn was dead and the king had asked Ned to be his Lord Hand, and though her parents fought about it in hushed whispers Ned agreed and suggested he bring Sansa with him too, that the distractions of King's Landing would be good for her.

When Sansa heard this she hugged him tightly, her mind spinning scenes of her arrival, of her welcome by her betrothed, ignoring the sense of unease that hummed beneath her childlike excitement. She would flower when she journeyed south, she was sure of it, and the pain of these waiting years would be forgotten, she would be glad to be older and wiser when she stood in the sept on her wedding day.

Robb was still not quite old enough to hold Winterfell by himself and Rickon too young and wild for court and so Catelyn said that she would join Ned, Sansa and Arya in King's Landing in a year or so's time, and waved them goodbye as they left. Arya had wished to stay at home but their parents had told her that if she did stay behind she would be married off soon to one of her father's bannerman's sons, with the hope that this would persuade her to go south and that she might learn ladylike manners at court, after they had allowed her to run wild at Winterfell. Arya grumbled as they rode south but Sansa would not let her ill humour dampen her excitement as they travelled past scenery she had only dreamed of, spotting villages and towns on the horizon, passing travellers of all kinds on the King's Road, and when the capital itself appeared before them, she felt her heart lift in her chest.

They were welcomed with the honour befitting the Lord Hand and the betrothed of the crown prince, with many in the crowd jostling to get a better look. Sansa was surprised by the sight of Prince Joffrey though she did not show it, bowing deeply before him, smiling pleasantly as he kissed her hand. She had been picturing his uncle, she realised now, when she had thought of how he would look several years older, but though he was as blonde as Jaime, and as tall, he was not broad, and his face was not as handsome. But the love between husbands and wives was not sudden, her mother had often told her, it grew with time, and was all the stronger for it.

There was a feast the first night and while Sansa enjoyed the spectacle, the gowns and the food and the singer with his beautiful voice, she was slightly unnerved by Joffrey's particular humour and by the king's drunken rowdiness, his unabashed rudeness towards his wife.

As the days at court continued, with their father so busy he barely ever saw them, though he still had time to arrange sword-fighting lessons for Arya, Sansa thought of Bellena's lessons - listening to gossip, making friends with her maidservants, watching interactions between different noblemen and women closely. The king was popular with most of his subjects, being free with his coffers and his favours, being fond of tourneys and feasts and entertainments. But other more shrewd members of the court were nervous about his reliance on Lannister gold, and about the power of the small council when the king himself was disinclined to the work of ruling. Sansa agreed with them, and worried for her father whose task it now was to corral this man of many lusts.

"Something is wrong with father," Arya said to her one morning as they broke their fast on the sunny balcony of the Tower of the Hand, and after their servants had retreated to other tasks,

"Is he not just busy, and concerned with the state of the court under the king?" Sansa said. She and Arya had spent little time with one another either, Arya was often down at the kennels with Nymeria, practising her sword-fighting, or venturing out into the city for secretive excursions that Sansa did her best to persuade her against. Arya was bolder than she was, too bold, Sansa thought now that they were here at court, and though her younger sister was a woman now she did not seem to realise it.

"No," Arya shook her head, ripping into a ripe orange. "I've heard that he's been on some kind of mission in the city, that he's been visiting brothels."

"Arya-"

"Not to use them, silly, but to investigate something."

"Investigate what?"

Arya shrugged.

"But you're not visiting brothels, are you?"

"No, of course not," Arya spat out. "I'm a woman, why would I go to a brothel?"

"I don't know."

"Exactly," Arya said, setting her chin.

"We should ask him. We're not children, we need to know if something is the matter here at court, if it might affect our positions-"

"If it might affect your marriage to Joffrey, you mean," Arya said. "I don't know why you wish to wed him, he's awful."

"Arya," Sansa said, looking around them as if to find spies lurking.

"Well he is, and ugly." Arya reached a hand across the table to clutch Sansa's. "I've heard he's cruel, Sansa, that he hurts whores, that he beats servants bloody."

Sansa cannot think of something to say in response to Arya's words for she has heard the same rumours, though not the ones about him hurting whores. She clings to the idea that he will change when he weds, that she can temper his cruelty. For what else can she do? She has dreamed of marrying a prince since she was young, their betrothal has already been so long, she can hardly ask her father to break it now, it would be the gravest of insults and the crown would be within their rights to ask for recompense from the north.

That she was yet to flower had now become a relief, but it was not to be for long, for the queen arrived at her door one day with three maesters in tow. They had come to investigate the cause of her ailment, Cersei said with a cruel gleam in her eye. It was no mystery to Sansa where the crown prince had gotten his own cruelty from, now that she had spent time in the queen's company.

"You don't mind, do you, little dove?" Cersei asked.

"Of course not, Your Grace," Sansa replied, hating the queen for settling herself on a chair to watch.

Sansa's maidservants help her strip to her shift and then she lay on the couch as the maesters pressed their hands one by one into her belly, their fingers digging deep into her organs, while she stared at the ceiling and pretended she was anywhere else but here.

The three maesters conferred in the corner of the room for a moment before turning to them, looking grave. "It is clear to us that Lady Sansa has been born without a womb," they said, "and that this is the cause of her lack of flowering."

"What?" Sansa said, with a thin voice, forgetting to be polite. Her heart was kicking violently in her chest.

"You're sure?" Cersei asked, and Sansa could not bear the way she sounded gleeful.

"We could do a further investigation, inside-"

"Oh no, that will not be necessary. Best to keep her maidenhead for her future husband," Cersei said with a dry laugh. "Though what husband would want a woman who could not bear children-"

"Is that right?" Sansa asked, her breath becoming tight, "I cannot bear children?"

"That is correct, my lady," the youngest maester, a man with a full grey beard said.

"You're sure. I cannot...grow a womb?"

"No," the eldest maester said with a ridiculing laugh. "'Twould be like growing an arm that was stunted since birth, impossible."

The maesters left the room and Cersei stood up, brushing her skirts. "You know that this will mean the betrothal will have to be broken, of course," she said, as Sansa sat up on the couch and brought her hands around her knees. Her maidservants had not looked at her since the maesters' pronouncement. "The crown prince needs heirs, and you cannot provide them." She waited for Sansa to reply but when she did not, her voice stopped up in her throat, she huffed a sigh and swept from the room.

Sansa was brought before the small council later that day, with the maesters in attendance, and Cersei too, as her father argued and shouted, outraged by their words. Perhaps Joffrey might marry Arya, one member suggested, before Ned bellowed that if Joffrey was not to marry Sansa then he would marry no Stark, that Ned himself would not remain at court to be insulted thus. And then the king said crude words that Sansa tried her best not to hear, letting her eyes glaze over, allowing her attention to drift to one member of the council who had looked sorrowful when he heard the news, and not gleeful or mean like the rest - Lord Baelish, who had been a close friend of her mother's as children, and who had introduced himself to Sansa in her first week at court, gifting her a pair of silver earrings and telling her that if she ever needed help she should come to him. She had taken his offer like any other offer of friendship from members of court, with a dose of scepticism, but a tiny part of her was thankful that at least one other person did not see her entirely as a piece to be moved on a board as she stood there before them.

Ned threw his pin down on the table, resigning his position as Lord Hand, and pulled Sansa by the hand from the room to the bellowing shouts of the king, and it was only then that she started to cry and the tears, once started, did not stop.

"It's alright, Sansa," her father said, when they reached the Tower of the Hand and he fumbled around trying to find something to stop her tears. "We shall return to Winterfell, and all shall be well."

"But I cannot wed, I cannot bear children," Sansa sobbed, and Ned had no reply for that as she threw herself down on a couch and wept.

Later, with her father busy elsewhere preparing them to leave, Arya sat with her, trying to coax her to drink wine, as Lady, who her sister had smuggled into the keep, burrowed into her middle, whining softly.

"Is it possible to feel a womb through the stomach?" Arya asked. "Here, let me try."

"Arya," Sansa said, feebly swatting her away.

"Fine, I'll try on myself."

Sansa watched as Arya dug into her belly, her tongue sticking out with concentration, and it made her laugh and then the laughter turned into more tears.

"I think they were wrong, what do they know," Arya exclaimed, "they spend their time with men, I bet some of them have never even seen a naked woman."

"They were right. I have not bled, Arya, women must bleed before they can bear children."

"You can have my children," Arya said. "I shall have more than I need, and give you some."

"Oh, Arya," Sansa said, hugging her sister tightly. "You should keep your children for yourself. And I shall be their tutor, or a septa, or an unmarried aunt," she added, tears rolling down her cheeks.

No future she had ever imagined was barren of children, of a husband, and she knew that the pain she felt now was partly shock, that the true pain was yet to come, when she faced her mother, when she met her brother's future babes, when she looked to a life without the love of husband or children. How would she survive it?

But the gods were not finished yet with hurting her, or her family, and only the next day the king was injured during a hunt and quickly sickened, dying soon after.

 

And then her father told them to stay in their rooms with their guards, for he was to announce that Joffrey was not the king's true son, but a boy born of incest like all Cersei's children, and though Sansa begged him not to, seeing how dangerous it would be, he refused.

 

And then, as if everything was only some terrible nightmare, her father was beheaded in front of her, and Arya fled from her place in the crowd, while Sansa collapsed insensible to the floor.

 

She awoke later in the small room that was now her home and screamed when she remembered what had happened, but there was no one left to comfort her and her screams and cries echoed off the walls for hours to come.

 

***

 

Her father is dead, Arya is vanished with both of their direwolves, the crown is at war with her brother and mother, and Sansa is a prisoner who is brought before Joffrey and beaten for her brother's treachery.

She is a barren, useless bargaining tool who will soon, she expects, be shipped off to become a silent sister, or gotten rid of in some more gruesome way.

She is alone in the gardens one day sitting in a hollow near a rosebush, staring vacantly out at the bay, when the sound of approaching footsteps rouses her. She is shunned by everyone now, even servants, and gossiped about and looked at and laughed at. Are they now to speak to her directly, to mock her to her face?

"My lady," Lord Baelish greets as he bows his head to her.

"My lord," she replies, her voice scratchy from misuse.

He looks as pained as he did that day when her betrothal was broken in front of the small council.

"Forgive me for not meeting with you sooner. I was called away on business for the crown."

He pauses but she does not know what to say.

"May I sit beside you?" he asks.

"Of course," she says, moving the skirts of her gown from the bench and shifting so that she might face him.

"I have lately visited your mother, Sansa," he says and her breath hitches. "I was hoping to arrange a trade of hostages, but alas it was not to be. Your mother of course, like all mothers, would have done anything to save you. But politics being what they are-"

"My brother must think of the north, not just his sister," she replies, thinking that if he is to be so bold with his words, then so shall she. Still, the thought that she might have been freed, of her mother— She wipes a tear that slides down her cheek.

"Forgive me, my lady, I did not mean to upset you," he says, taking her hand. His own hands are softer than she expected from a man. He strokes a thumb across the back of her hand and then sets it down again.

"I will do everything I can to help get you home," he swears.

She studies his face, the grey-green of his eyes, and how, when he speaks, his mouth tilts a little to one side. "Why would you do such a thing, my lord. The crown calls me a traitor. To be my friend is to be accused of being a traitor yourself."

"I was fond of your mother when we were children, she was like a sister to me-" more than a sister, she has heard, thinking of the scar he is supposed to wear underneath the fine fabrics of his slim surcoats, "and I am thus your only family here at court, it is my duty to help you."

Bellena would have told her to suspect Lord Baelish's motives, but she is hardly a piece to be played anymore, and no man will wish to trick her into their bed now that they know she is not a true woman. Maybe he has done some deal with the Lannisters to trick her into revealing some information that she does not have, or to trap her into stating her treachery such that she can be executed too, but if so, then so be it. If they want her dead she will be dead soon enough.

"Tell me, did you dream of journeying to King's Landing as a child, like I did?" he asks, as a flock of birds rush from a nearby tree up into the sky.

She smiles ruefully. "I did, my lord."

"Please, call me Petyr."

"Petyr," she says and he smiles. "I dreamed of little else - of the splendours of the Red Keep, of the gowns, the feasts and food, the songs - Winterfell was too far for travelling bards."

"I too was fond of songs as a child, and of feasts. Tell me, if you could eat anything, what would it be?"

"Lemon cakes," she says and then breathes a laugh, "I dreamed that when I lived here I would eat nothing but lemon cakes."

"For me, it was candied almonds."

"Oh, and those too," she says, smiling, and then her chin trembles. "The king does not allow me to eat as the rest of the court does."

"He should concern himself with other things, not what maidens eat," he says darkly.

"You should not speak thus of his Grace, there are always ears listening."

"A wise assertion, but I am confident that this part of the gardens are empty this morning. I thank you, though, for your concern," he says warmly. He picks up her hand again and kisses it, eyes fixed on hers. "I must take my leave, Sansa, but we shall speak again."

The next afternoon, as she is sitting on a stool in her room staring out of the small window that looks across the city, a knock sounds at her door. Thinking it to be a maidservant, she calls them in, but a child enters instead, giggling, and thrusts a package into her arms before running off.

Sansa sits on her bed to unwrap the layers of fabric and finds a wooden box of candied almonds inside. She smiles and pops three in her mouth straightaway, her eyes almost watering at their sweetness. She eats several more, sucking the sugar from them, crunching the almonds between her teeth, as she lies on her bed and runs a finger over the floral patterns of the wooden box. And then she realises that the plain fabric that wrapped the box hides another piece of fabric inside of it, a shawl of gauzy purple, so fine to be almost translucent. She feels her cheeks heat with pleasure as she strokes it, plays it through her fingers, and then tucks it inside the shawl she already wears, a secret next to her skin.

Her meetings with Petyr continue, though out of some kind of embarrassment, she never thanks him for his gifts - the lemon cakes that arrive on a plain plate that will not be remarked upon by the maidservants that intermittently remove her trays and plates; the golden hairpin so fine it is almost hidden in the mass of her thick hair; the slim book of songs that she hides underneath her mattress. They speak of such things when they sit in the gardens, where she chooses a different quiet spot each morning, hoping he might find her - fineries, luxuries, small pleasures – as if they have both decided that to speak of her position at court, of politics, of the war, would be useless.

The gifts that wait in her rooms are a small comfort to her when she is brought before Joffrey or mocked and shunned by others but she is glad to be so circumspect about keeping them hidden when Cersei sweeps into her room one day, though without the maesters this time.

Sansa dips into a shallow curtsey to welcome her, tries to hide the loathing she feels for the queen. "Your Grace," she says.

"Litte dove," Cersei says with an oily grin. "I have some wonderful, unexpected news to share." She pauses - to extend Sansa's worry, she thinks. "You are to be married," she exclaims.

"Married?" Sansa repeats, her mouth dry.

"Yes," Cersei says, "we have found you a husband willing to look past your defect. A monumental task, I assure you. You are not happy?"

"Of course I am, Your Grace."

"Then you should look it, and thank us."

"I thank you dearly, Your Grace. Your generosity is overwhelming."

Cersei smiles and turns for the door.

"When am I to be wed?" Sansa asks, voice shaking.

"Tomorrow. I believe your betrothed will provide you with a gown," she adds, looking at Sansa's worn clothing distastefully.

"And the name of my betrothed, Your Grace?" she asks, heart in her throat.

"Why, the Master of the Coin himself."

"Lord Baelish?"

Cersei shrugs. "It is because he is still obsessed with your mother, no doubt, for you bear a resemblance to her. A foolish thing to marry a woman who cannot give you heirs but still, brothel owners do have strange tastes."

"Brothel owners?"

"Your betrothed owns several brothels in the capital, had you not heard? He is not content with his position at court, but then I hear his grandfather was a sellsword from Braavos, and customs are very different there." Cersei smiles and leaves the room and Sansa sinks onto her bed, every limb shaking.

 _Married_ to Lord Baelish. She cannot understand it. Does he not believe what the maesters discovered? He has been kind to her, but a marriage is something beyond simple kindness.

The rest of the day, and the next, are like a dream she sleepwalks through. Servants come to take her belongings to Lord Baelish's home in the city outside the keep itself, and a gown of exquisite beauty arrives for her but she can barely notice the silver threads of its samite, the soft fur trim, she is in such a daze.

She is to be married in the royal sept in the late afternoon, with a small audience of onlookers, and without a feast to follow. A world away from the wedding she should have had, yet Joffrey will not let the day proceed without hurting her one more time, escorting her up the aisle in place of her father, whispering foul things in her ear.

Lord Baelish is neat as ever in a fine wedding surcoat, and though she would usually take comfort from his hand in hers, she is too worried, too confused, to do so.

And then, she is whisked away in a separate carriage from her new husband, and arrives just after him at her new home, the sky beginning to pink with a sunset. At least, she thinks, she has escaped from the Red Keep and its horrors, but what kind of life awaits her here, with her new husband?

He kisses her on the cheek and escorts her to his bedchambers which are rich with splendour - golds, velvets, bronzes, samites, fine tapestries, delicately carved woods, and furs. The candles that are lit make the room look like some dragon's horde, like she had expected the rooms at the palace to look like before she was disappointed by their mostly bare walls.

"Do you need my assistance to undress?" he asks, once they have stood in silence for a few moments.

"You are aware that I am barren, my lord, that I cannot give you children," she replies, crossing her arms over her middle. She had been so comfortable with him when they spoke in the gardens but she had naively assumed that he had been treating her like a friend, or a family member, that he knew about her condition.

"I know. But is not pleasure between a husband and wife part of marriage too?"

"Pleasure? I am broken, my lord, I do not- I am not-" She shakes her head, feeling her chin shake, tears prickle at her eyes.

"You are perhaps aware, my lady," he says, pouring them two cups of wine, "that I own several brothels."

"I am," she replies after a pause. Is he to talk about finding his pleasures elsewhere with other women, _now_ , and break her heart further?

"So you would agree that I might have a better idea than most whether or not you are, as you say, _broken_ ," he says softly, passing her wine. "How you, and your body, compare to other women."

"Yes," she says, her cheeks flushing.

"And so, what I propose, Sansa, is that after you and I have become more comfortable with each other," he says, moving closer to sit on the bench at the foot of the bed near to where she stands. "After we have learned those little things that husbands and wives learn about one another, once we have gotten over the awkwardness of sharing a bed and waking up to see each other's sleep-mussed selves, then you might allow me to examine you-"

"Do it now," she says, interrupting his talk of the future. She cannot allow herself to become fond of her husband, for her husband to become fond of her, to believe false things. This must be found out now, for both their sakes.

"You're sure? I don't wish to frighten you or make you uncomfortable. I want this to be a successful marriage, Sansa, a happy one."

"Happiness cannot be built on empty hopes and wishes," she says firmly, submitting herself to his gaze. "I want you to know this about me now, I don't wish for several weeks of mummery before you are disappointed."

"Alright then. More wine?" he asks after she has finished the last drops of her first cup.

"Yes," she says, and feels her body shake.

He undresses her carefully, slowly, in stark comparison to the way she would have been undressed during the bedding ceremony she did not have. His hands are soft and warm and though she can tell he is attracted to her she appreciates that he does not leer or say lewd things, that he is treating her gently.

But will he be so kind to her when he finds out for himself that she is damaged?

He bids her lie on the bed in the gauzy shift she had sewn herself a year ago for her wedding to the crown prince that never happened, and to raise her knees. And then, as her breath shudders, he parts her thighs and looks between her legs, touching her _there,_ where no one else ever has, with his slim fingers, the tips of his fingers soft and searching.

"You look normal, Sansa," he says, once he has finished, his voice a little deeper. "You have all the parts that can bring pleasure."

He leans back and tugs her shift back down, covering her legs to the knee.

"I do," she repeats.

"You do, and I can show you how to find pleasure. And the inside, your...sheath, my lady. It is a little shorter than some women, and it is closed at the top, it does not lead to a womb, but apart from that it is normal." It is so quiet in the room that she can hear him moisten his lips. "If you wish, I can show you how to stretch it so that I might enter you in the manner of most men and women. Several of the women in my establishments over the years have had to stretch themselves to suit men with...larger than usual parts and so I believe it is possible, and will be painless."

Sansa's mind is reeling with many new thoughts. Why has no one explained any of this before? Why was she allowed to be so ignorant about herself and her own body?

"If it is not too shocking to suggest, my lady, then you should use a mirror sometime to look at yourself between your legs and see for yourself."

"I fear you are trying to make me into one of your loose women, my lord," she says with a thin voice, propping herself up to look at him, feeling warm under his eyes and with the wine she has drunk.

"I am not suggesting that I am present for such a scene," he says, teasing her gently.

She huffs a laugh and flops back on the bed – for what shame is there to appear unladylike with a man who has just examined your most intimate parts?

"I wager this is not how you imagined your wedding night when you were a little girl," he says, sitting beside her on the bed, unbuttoning his waistcoat and bending to remove his shoes and socks.

"You have the right of it." She pauses. "I wager I am not the kind of wife you imagined either. I wager you pictured sons and daughters in your future, my lord," she says, and feels the tears start to drip down the sides of her face.

"Sansa," he sighs, so kindly, leaning over to touch her cheek. "If you must know, I did dream of a wife with red hair just like yours," he says, stroking the curls that had come loose, "but never quite so beautiful as you are nor, I think, so intelligent. May I help you unpick your hair, sweetling?" he asks.

"Yes," she says with a thick voice, and sits up with her back to him.

He had provided maidservants to dress her this morning but before then, and since she had been shunned by all at court, she had been alone and untouched.

This is not what she pictured a husband doing when she thought of her future marriage but she finds she likes it, his fingers stroking through her hair gently, soft fingertips catching on the nape of her neck. Having spent so many mornings with him in the gardens, inside narrow bowers of roses or in a hollow of climbing plants, she is familiar with his particular masculine perfume - the inks he must use as Master of the Coin, the fabric and leather he wears, the oils he uses to soften his beard - and now she feels her body loosen the tension it had held since she found out about the wedding yesterday.

"I had not wished to speak of this now," he says as he works, a pile of pins forming on the bed beside her, "but I think since the topic has already arisen, I might share with you some thoughts. If you could have children but not bear them yourself, would you, Sansa?"

"What do you mean?" she says, clutching her fingers into the bedclothes. "Adopting orphans?"

"No, something more ambitious than that."

She notes his choice of word.

"I propose, sweetling, to create a grand mummery that you are with child, and have another woman bear that child."

She gapes for a moment. "It will be found out, surely."

"I have given this much thought, Sansa," he says, brushing his hand down her bare arm.

She tries to understand. "This child - you will lay with another woman?" Her voice shakes. Her husband is so matter-of-fact, she should strive to be the same.

"No, no," he says, and tips her face towards him with a finger beneath her chin. "I will not break my vows, I swear it." He stands up and carries her hairpins to her dressing table. "I will put my seed into a cup which will then be placed inside the woman with a funnel. Another old brothel trick."

She can feel her cheeks blushing, her head tilts to the side trying to picture it. "A trick for whom?" she asks, sliding underneath the sheets of the bed, aware that it is most unusual to be speaking of brothels to her lordly husband, but eager for the opportunity to learn more.

"Oh," he says, with his back to her, as he unlaces his breeches and tugs them down. "For rich men with strange tastes. Or for men who desire children but do not wish to lay with a woman to do so."

What are his own tastes, she wonders as he pulls down his smallclothes, his legs bare now beneath the long undertunic.

When he turns around, she pretends her eyes have been closed the whole time, and he circles the room blowing out the candles before sliding into the bed next to her.

"It has been a long day but I wonder whether I might beg a kiss from you now, what say you?" His voice is low and seductive in the dark.

"Yes," she whispers.

He shifts towards her and she catches the glint of his eyes before he cups the back of her head and brings her towards him for a kiss. He had kissed her in the sept but it was brief and she had not been paying attention. Now she has nothing else to distract her from the warmth of his lips, the tickle of his moustache and beard, the tease of his tongue on her lips and then, when her mouth parts, the stroke of his tongue over hers.

When he pulls back she almost makes a sound of dismay, wishing for the kiss to last much longer.

"Good night, little wife," he says, once he has settled on his own pillow, and she can hear the smile in his voice.

"Good night," she replies, and though she thinks she will stay awake for much of the night, unused to sharing a bed with a man, a husband, she falls asleep within moments.

He kisses her on the cheek when she wakes the next morning. He is already up and dressed, neat mockingbird pin on his shoulder holding up the swoop of his purple cloak. "Good morning, sweetling," he says, brushing a thumb across her cheek as she blinks and hides a yawn behind her mouth.

"Did I sleep too long?" she asks muzzily.

"No, it is I who have woken early. I have been called before the Queen," he says, "who does not understand that a man might wish to spend the morning after his wedding with his wife. Or perhaps she does understand, and that is why she calls me in, so that she may remind me that I am her dog," he adds wryly.

"She is cruel like that," Sansa murmurs, feeling a chill run through her.

"You should be free of her concern now, sweetling, living here with me," he says, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Your marriage will have made you forgettable to her, a piece already played. And I shall try my best to prevent Joffrey ever bothering you again. He will of course, never have you hurt again in front of the court," he says with a tight jaw, "but he may jeer at you, or send cruel gifts."

"Will we remain here at court, my lord, or travel to your...keep?"

"Petyr," he corrects.

"Petyr," she says, and then notices how low the sheets have dipped over her thin shift, and pulls them up with a blush while he smiles.

"We shall remain at court for now. In the future, we might travel elsewhere, but I have no desire to return to the Fingers, nor to take you there." He strokes a hand through her hair. "A beautiful woman like you deserves only the most beautiful surroundings. While I am gone this morning, take the chance to explore your new home. There is nothing off-limits to you, Sansa, not my office, nor any chest or box. And I have provided you with new clothes, though more will need to be made, and scarves and hairpins and all such things." His hand swoops to encompass the bedchamber and the dressing room seen through a curtained door.

"Thank you, Petyr, you are too kind."

"Nonsense. You must be clothed in the manner that befits your position, and your beauty. Besides, it will be my own gift, being able to look at you wearing such fineries."

She smiles and tries not to stare at the chests and wardrobe she is now dying to peek inside. Her marriage to him was presented as an insult, a low match, and while that might be true, it is also true that he is very wealthy indeed, far wealthier than many noble men without such a head for numbers.

"But there is one thing I need to do first," he says, tugging back the sheets and quilt on his side of the bed. She watches as he pricks his thumb with a short dagger and then drips blood onto the bed. "I trust my servants of course, I certainly pay them well enough, but it is good to be careful."

She stares at the spot of blood which he covers up with the sheets again. "Do I have a maidenhead?" she blurts out.

Only one night with her brothel keep husband and she is already speaking of things a proper lady should not. Her mother would be utterly appalled.

"You do."

"What it is exactly?" she asks curiously. For if he is willing to educate her on matters such as this then she shall ask him many questions. If she had been educated before, she might have known what she lacked, she might never have been betrothed to Joffrey and would be safe at Winterfell, though it is likely she would be still unwed, that her mother would now be encouraging her to become a septa. 

"A thin ring of flesh around the entrance to your sheath," he says as he replaces the dagger in its hilt and puts a large tome that must be one of his ledgers under his arm. "It is stretched the first time a man, or thick fingers or an implement, thrusts inside, but with enough care it should not hurt or bleed. And some women's are stretched naturally by exercise, or they are born without it." He waves his hand. "'Tis easily faked with a spot of blood, as you see, even though the blood means that the man did not care enough for his woman's pleasure."

"I never knew," she says, shaking her head.

"Most do not," he says kindly. "Now, you will send a servant to me if you need me, for anything at all?" he asks, moving to the door.

"I will, husband," she says, trying out the title.

"Good," he says with a pleased smile. "I will see you later, wife."

The moment the door is closed and his footsteps retreat, she leaps out of bed and hurries to the first chest.

It seems she has chosen the right one, for the first thing she finds underneath the heavy lid is a woman's robe of purple quilted velvet, lined with golden silk, edged with white fur, and tied by a belt weighted by two large Braavosi glass beads. She tugs it around herself and sighs at how luxurious it feels. Surely everything he has gifted her shall not be as fine as this?

And yet, as she spends the morning opening chests and boxes and wardrobes, she finds that this was only a glimpse of the opulence to come, and is utterly amazed by the coin he must have spent to clothe her.

There are two more robes, one of a light silk, the other fur-lined and warm.

There are sixteen new gowns that look to fit her perfectly – though she dare not attempt to try them on without asking a maidservant for help, and she cannot call a maidservant in just to help her try them all on, she will look mad – of samites, silks, damasks, soft wools, Myrish laces and satins. They are decorated and trimmed with pearls, furs and delicately worked embroidery, and have dagged sleeves or bell sleeves so long they will surely drag on the ground as she walks.

There are soft slippers sewn with colourful glass gems, and supple leather boots, warm cloaks and silken cloaks, thin moleskin gloves, and even a pair of fur mittens for winter.

There are translucent veils of silk with gold and silver borders that look perfect against the shade of her hair, and three hairnets heavy with gems.

And inside the jewellery boxes she finds delights that make her gasp with wonder, almost laugh with pleasure. There are golden bracelets, silver chains, girdles studded with ruby and emerald and pearl, enough rings to cover each finger twice over and fitted with almost every gem she has ever heard of, necklaces heavy with pendants and precious metal links, and pins almost as large as her palm, studded with jewels or worked into wondrous shapes. There is mockingbird pin of her own too at the bottom of the last jewellery box and she sets it aside so that she many wear it later.

He has also provided her with stockings and smallclothes and she blushes when she opens those particular chests and then marvels at the delicate silks and lace, the patterns embroidered on the tops of the stockings and the richness of the ribbons she will use to tie them.

By the time she has replaced everything in its original position she is almost faint with hunger, the bites from the fruit and cheese that Petyr had left for her not enough to sate her. She has the maidservants help her dress into her chosen gown for the day - a blue damask with a fur-trimmed neckline and a bodice with a deep V that feels pleasantly tight when it is tied.

She decides to wear most of her hair loose and pin only the sides, as she used to as a girl, reasoning that since she does not live in the Red Keep anymore she does not have to wear the court's hairstyles either; and chooses a thin silver necklace with an amber pendant, a golden bracelet of linked squares, and two pearl rings, to accompany the mockingbird pin on her left breast.

When she finally leaves the room, ready to take a meal elsewhere in the house, her husband is just arriving home and his footsteps pause when he sees her.

" _Sansa_ ," he says, kissing her cheek, "you look a vision."

"A vision of your creation. Thank you for your gifts, I was quite overwhelmed."

"And you will need sustenance no doubt, after your hunt through all the chests and boxes," he teases, chucking her under the chin.

They eat on a table set in the shade of the balcony overlooking the courtyard and it is such a relief to be able to have a full meal without worrying about Joffrey getting one of his guards to snatch the food away from her, or having to make do with hard ends of bread. She fills her plate with ripe fruits, soft cheeses, pastries and honeybreads, and washes it down with wine.

"Did you have time to explore the rest of the house?" he asks her, slicing open an orange with his knife.

"I did not," she says, slightly embarrassed.

"I shall have to give you a tour later," he says with a smile.

"You have an office here, you said. Are there rooms for the Master of the Coin in the Red Keep?" she asks, eating another spoonful of lemon cake, almost groaning at the sweet taste. She will have to be careful not to get fat with all this food.

"There are but they are crumbling and poor," he says. "I keep an office here, and at another one of my buildings further towards the palace, and attend small council meetings in the Red Keep of course."

"By other buildings, do you mean your brothels?" she asks, trying to appear more nonchalant than she feels.

"Yes," he says after taking a sip of wine. "I find it a good hiding place for my ledgers and the surroundings often discomfit visitors, which I find useful too," he says conspiratorially.

"Do you own other buildings in the capital?"

"I do, businesses, warehouses, shops and homes here and there, from which I collect rent."

She is surprised he is so open about his mercantile work, as another nobleman would not be, but then she supposes that she is asking quite openly too. She takes a bite of a sweet pastry and then absentmindedly licks the honey off her thumb and catches him watching her hungrily. She thinks of the kiss last night, of what he has said.

"Your brothels, I want to know more about what men and women do there."

"You wish to visit my brothels?" he asks, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Yes," she says, though she had only meant him to _talk_ about what occurred there. But a visit would do the trick too, she thinks, startled by her own boldness, feeling her cheeks pinken.

She is curious now, after learning what little she has already about her own body. And what natural shame she had might well have been beaten out of her by Joffrey's punishments. What good is there, she has started to wonder, in being always courteous and dutiful. Will the world treat her any kinder if she is polite and simpering?

"Of course, sweetling," he says, kissing her hand, eyes glinting. "I do admire your inquisitive nature, not many wives should be so interested in their husbands' work," he adds, with a hint of mockery towards those other wives rather than towards her. "Luckily, I have visitors who enjoy observing secretly through screens and peepholes, so no one will know that your ladyship has visited."

In her single-mindedness she had not even thought about that, about gossip being spread about her. "Others come to watch?" she asks.

"They pay to watch," he corrects with a smirk.

 

*

 

A few evenings later, he has her put on her new hooded cloak of dark wool and they take a carriage some streets away and he leads her through several winding passages on foot before she enters one of his brothels through an unremarkable door he unlocks with a key from his pocket.

In the darkened corridor, she can hear murmurs of voices already, smell incense and wine and other unfamiliar smells. He leads her through another locked door and then through an arched doorway covered with a thick tapestry curtain and into a narrow hallway painted in reds, with silk fabric draped at intervals.

He pushes the hood of her cloak back and unties its clasp and she happily removes the heavy fabric. She can hear giggling now and then a man's moan, and she flushes and feels her toes curl in her boots.

He is smirking at her, as if he can tell she is feeling warm. "Is it what you expected?" he asks.

"I have seen only corridors so far, my lord," she replies tartly and he laughs and kisses her cheek, putting a warm hand around her waist.

She is wearing another new gown today of a thinner navy silk, with pearls on its bodice like stars in the night sky.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"I am," she says, raising her chin.

He slips a small panel free of one of the walls, revealing a spyhole as large as an eye. "Here," he says, moving her into place. "Take a look in this room first."

She shuffles closer, aware of him standing behind her, warm and solid, and blinks as she looks into a room swathed with purple fabric to see the bare backside of a man who is bent over with his head in between the thighs of a woman, while she is hitting the backside of _another_ man with her palm.

"Oh gods," Sansa says with a shocked flinch, drawing back.

"An advanced scene, perhaps," he says with a chuckle, "let's start with this one," he adds, tugging her along to the next peephole.

She fits her eye to the hole and looks into a different room, one decorated with silvers and blues, to see a man sitting drinking wine while two naked women lay on a bed before him.

"What do you see?" he murmurs, sliding his hands around her waist from behind.

She feels her stomach tremble at his touch, and at the sight before her. "Two women."

"Yes?" he coaxes.

"...touching each other with their fingers, kissing each other." She hears the muffled sounds of the women's moans. "Is it an act, do they feel pleasure together?"

"They do. Although perhaps they are exaggerating some of their sighs and moans for their male audience," he says and the laugh he breathes glances across her neck. "You do not need a man to feel pleasure, Sansa, nor another woman, you may give pleasure to yourself."

"I can?" she questions with a gasp as one of his hands slides further down her belly.

"Yes," he whispers and begins to kiss her neck as she tilts her head back towards him.

She watches as the two women come to a moment of great pleasure, their bodies arching, moaning loudly.

"Women peak as men do," he says, "though I'm told that it is stronger than a man's climax, that it may continue for many minutes at a time, instead of being the short pleasure a man feels."

Sansa feels as if she could swoon, as if something is unfurling inside of herself. She turns and puts her arms around his neck and kisses him clumsily and he gentles her, shifting her head with a hand at her nape, teaching her how to use her tongue. She feels overheated, her breath short.

"You spoke of pleasure," she says between kisses, marvelling at her own daring.

"I did, didn't I," he murmurs wickedly and then sucks on her neck. "Shall I show you here, now?"

"Yes," she gasps.

He pushes her back so that she sits on a padded bench she had not seen and then he kneels at her feet. His hair is curling around his ears and his eyes look very dark.

"Wife," he says with a smirk and a nod, and then he slides his hands up her legs beneath her skirts; slowly, bewitchingly.

She helps him hold up her heavy skirts as his hands slip further, knowing that she is so terribly _wanton_ to be doing this, and yet also feeling a shivery transgressive thrill.

But is she not only doing as her husband wishes, is she not simply following his lead like a good wife should, she thinks, even as her breath is short with an excitement that has nothing to do with being _dutiful_.

When his fingers reach the tops of her stockings, she hears his own breath hitch, but he does not move to roll them down.

"I shall remove your smallclothes now," he says with a low voice.

She nods and bites her lip as she feels his hands on her hips, lifting herself so that he can tug the smallclothes down.

"Good," he murmurs, hungry eyes fixed on her and then he bends to put his face between her thighs as she tips her head back, her cheeks blushing hot.

He kisses her thighs, sucks at the skin as he widens her legs further. And then he kisses her _there_ , and she can feel his nose rubbing against her too, and then he licks at her and it feels _wonderful_ , the pleasure warm and glowing, and then he sucks on one particular spot that makes her squirm and whine, and she reaches a hand to clutch the back of his head, and within moments she feels a great wave of ecstasy, a quivering inside, and she puts a hand over her mouth to muffle her whimpers.

She pants as she comes down, shivering with little aftershocks as he strokes her thighs and laves his tongue across her most intimate of parts and then he sits back on his heels and she blushes even more at the sight of him, his red lips and his mussed hair, the sheen on his face.

" _Oh gods_ ," she whispers and his proud smirk widens.

"Good?" he asks.

"Yes," she says, wide-eyed.

"Good," he repeats, and helps her back into her smallclothes before standing up and removing a handkerchief from his pocket to clean himself which almost makes her faint with embarrassment. "Is that enough for today," he asks easily, "or do you wish to see more?"

"Tomorrow perhaps," she says breathlessly.

"Tomorrow it is," he says and ducks his head to kiss her bare shoulder as he helps her up from the bench.

But the next day she is too distracted to remember their plans to visit his brothel again because he wakes her up from an afternoon doze with a kiss that inflames her and has her moaning at just the touch of their tongues, his body pressing over hers, her hair tangled in his fists.

He peels her shift from her and stares at her as she lays bare in their bed, her lips bruised, her chest heaving.

"You're beautiful, Sansa, so lovely," he says, smoothing a hand up her side, cupping one of her breasts as she flushes.

He rubs his thumb across her nipple and she feels an answering clench in her stomach, then he ducks his head to suck the nipple into his mouth, as she thought only babes did, and she moans high in her throat.

His other hand moves between her legs. "Do you know what this is called?" he asks, kissing up her neck and cupping her mound.

"No," she gasps, for proper ladies do not speak of such things.

"It has many names, some vulgar, some not." His fingers slide down through the slick of her. "This is your cunt, Sansa, your cunny."

She whimpers and he kisses her deeply like he is drinking in her noises.

"Here," he says, slipping his fingers inside of her, "is where a man's cock may go." His fingers stroke her walls, pressing against them and causing a pleasurable ache. "And here," he moves his fingers upwards, and brushes against the same place he had sucked yesterday, "is your pearl, where most of a woman's pleasure is found." He circles it with his fingertips as he kisses her and her hips pulse and soon she peaks, biting at his lip in her abandon which makes him grunt with pleasure.

"And you, my lord?" she asks once she has regained her faculties, feeling bold, wishing to please her husband as he has pleased her. "Will you show me how you find pleasure?"

"Gladly," he says, and strips off the last of his clothes so that she may see him bare.

"Are all men of a similar...size?' she asks as she stares, thinking back to the jokes she has overheard, wondering how on earth his manhood would fit inside a normal woman.

He laughs, and touches himself. "As flattered as I am, sweetling, I must tell you that there are men with much larger cocks than mine. Here," he says, bringing her hand to touch his...cock, curling his fingers about hers and letting out a grunt when she grips him.

She feels almost lightheaded with her lack of shame, with her daring, as he teaches her how to stroke him, praising her between quiet groans, and then spilling his seed across their hands and onto her stomach. There is something thrilling about being responsible for his pleasure, for how flushed and spent he looks.

Once he has recovered, and kissed her again, he gets up from the bed for a cloth and she watches him stride unabashed across the room.

"You spoke of how I could stretch myself, inside," she says, gathering courage.

"I did. You would wish to?"

"Yes," she says with a nod as he settles beside her on the bed, cleaning her carefully and smoothing a hand across her stomach, then tweaking one of her nipples which makes her yelp a laugh as he smiles.

"Then yes, I can give you cylinders of ivory and polished wood that you can use with oils to stretch your sheath."

"You would help me with this?" she asks and watches as his eyes glitter.

"Of course, as you wish, little wife." He nips at her lips, laps his tongue over hers and then moves his hand back to her stomach. "And what do you think about my plan to have it seem that you are with child?" He pulls back to look her in the eye, his face more serious.

"Yes," she says, "if you are confident that it can be done, that none will find out the truth, then yes, I should like to have children with you, heirs." She feels a burning behind her eyes and turns to hide her face in his shoulder.

He strokes a hand down her back. "All will be well, sweetling, you'll see," he says softly. "You shall make a wonderful mother."

And at his sweet words she really does start crying as he hushes her and holds her, kissing the top of her head and pulling the bedsheets around them.

When the emotion has passed, it is time for dinner and he helps her to dress instead of calling in her maidservants, the teasing touch of his fingers almost enough to send them to bed again.

"Am I not keeping you from your work, husband?" she asks, as he kneels before her and slides her stockings up her legs. She has noticed the way his eyes heat when she calls him that.

"You are, but I am happy for the distraction. Numbers and books can be wearisome sometimes."

"Will you get into trouble for neglecting your duties?"

He laughs. "I shall not. Besides, I am the most dutiful Master of Coin the crown has had for many decades. The _state_ of the books I inherited," he clucks his tongue. "And if any were to admonish me I shall simply remind them that I have a nubile young wife waiting at home, with insatiable appetites," he teases.

" _Petyr_ ," she says, clutching her fingers in his surcoat. "You will do no such thing."

"I will leave out the part about your appetites perhaps," he replies as he stands up and has her turn and raise her arms to pull her skirts down over her head.

"I never imagined I would have such fine gowns," she says, smoothing a hand down the rich embroidery of the velvet skirt. "Not even when I thought I was to be a princess."

"It would be a crime to dress you in anything less than the best, sweetling," he says with a kiss to her neck. "And are you not still a princess," he murmurs softly, staring at her intently in the reflection of the mirror, "your brother is a king after all, the King in the North."

"I - I suppose so," she says, stomach warming when his hands grip her small waist.

She turns in his arms. "You think my brother will win?" she whispers. "Do you think he will defeat Joffrey?"

Petyr sighs and strokes a hand through the loose part of her hair. "Your brother is winning on the battlefield but winning the Iron Throne is not just about might."

"He doesn't want the Iron Throne, does he?" she asks.

It is more than a year now since she last saw her brother, and her mother; perhaps he has become ambitious, perhaps his victories make him grasp for more than an independent North. Petyr had encouraged her to write a message to include in the raven he sent to their camp but she has yet to receive a reply and the wait makes her ache.

He hums. "Probably not, but then a man's ambitions may change with time, and power. But you are safe, Sansa, no matter what he does. I promise you," he says and kisses her on the forehead.

She does feel safe with him, protected, loved. To have found such sanctuary here at King's Landing after experiencing so many horrors at the hand of the crown astounds her. Though it has been but a week since she was wed, she reminds herself, any contentment she feels can still be snatched away.

 

*

 

She is satisfied to stay inside Petyr's house for the first few weeks, to laze about indolently in the quiet and sit in the pleasant courtyard watching the birds come to drink at the fountain, to learn the rhythms of his household and get to know his servants, to start a few new pieces of embroidery with the silk threads her husband has gifted her, and to browse his collection of books - and Petyr seems to always find her when she is doing thus, lying on the couch or even the floor in a terribly unladylike fashion, staring at the illuminations, daydreaming and humming songs under her breath, and she suspects that he stands in the doorway watching her for quite some time before making his presence known for it seems to please him, her reading his books – and to eat the platters of fruits and cakes that bring a glow back to her cheeks.

But she soon starts to feel restless, wondering about the world outside the house, the people whose voices she can hear from the windows, the flashes of colour and life through the slats of the shutters. 

"May I visit the market stalls?" she asks one evening in bed, after they have both found their pleasure and as she stretches out her limbs, feeling woozy and warm.

"Of course you can," he says, propping his head on his elbow beside her. "Did you think you were a captive here?" He looks so wrought that it makes her feel upset in turn.

"No, I-"

"It is hard to unlearn habits, is it not. To unlearn the expectations of others," he says knowingly and then kisses her bare shoulder, slides a hand across her stomach so that she shivers.

He lifts the sheets and starts to kiss down her body as she bites her lip on the moans that build. It had taken her so little time to throw away the expectation that she should be chaste and modest, but then she had spent years hating her body for what it could not do, trying to distract herself from it, that it feels a welcome change to inhabit it fully. To allow herself to feel _good_ , she thinks, threading her fingers through his hair as he sups on her cunt ravenously as though he has not supped on it just an hour before.

She has four guards that accompany her and her two maidservants to the market, and a purse full of coin Petyr has gifted her. She is not sure there is anything left to buy since he provides her with everything she could dream of, and yet when she reaches a stall laden with exquisite wooden figurines she changes her mind, and buys a mockingbird for her husband, and a songbird for herself.

The Red Keep rises above the streets but hardly anyone glances up, they are too busy hurrying through, gossiping and shopping and carrying buckets and chests and bowls, ferrying carts and wagons, corralling their children, pausing to flirt in shady alleyways, calling across the street, hanging their washing out of windows, and praying at small shrines. Sansa looks her fill, getting distracted from the fruit stall and the leatherworker's stand, dawdling as the hood of her cloak slips free of her hair.

Slowly, she realises that she is not the only noblewoman browsing wares, that there are two ladies she recognises vaguely from court a few steps away, and that they are watching her.

She avoids their gazes and fingers the dull gems on an old woman's stall, the voices of her observer's ringing out above the din.

"Do you think she's been plucked yet?" one of them asks with a laugh as if she has told the very best joke.

Sansa clenches her teeth, feeling her cheeks heat.

"How could she, without the proper parts," her friend says, her voice cruel and mocking. "I heard that she has nothing _there_ , you know," she says with a laugh, motioning with her hand, "nothing!"

Sansa's eyes are brimming with tears now, her breath is hitching, and then she hears a sudden scream and looks to see the two ladies screeching and trying to flee something that has backed them up against a wall, growling. Something large and scruffy; a giant dun-coloured wolf.

"Lady!" Sansa cries, recognising her direwolf underneath all the dirt.

Lady growls at the two women again, jerks forward and bites her teeth at the air so that one of the women faints clean away and the other staggers under her friends weight, stumbling to the floor and smearing her skirts with dung.

Then Lady turns her head and trots over towards Sansa, looking happy and unperturbed.

Her guards move to block the beast as her handmaids hide behind her; much of the street watching the scene unfold.

"She won't harm me," Sansa says, clutching one of the guards by his arm. "I swear it," and she pushes past to kneel on the floor, uncaring about her skirts, nor that Lady smells like she has rolled in a pile of rubbish, laughing as her wolf licks her hand and buts her head into Sansa's stomach.

"Where have you been, girl?" she asks. "Is Nymeria with you?" She looks around as if she might catch a glimpse of another giant wolf, with a dark-haired girl standing by her side, but there is no one but the crowd, who have turned back to their business now that the two ladies have left sobbing in the arms of their handmaids and the wolf is no longer fearsome.

People give her strange looks on their walk home but she cares not and once she has explained to the servants that Lady is perfectly docile, she has them boil water so she can give her wolf a bath, scenting it with rosemary and mint, drenching herself to the skin by the time her fur is white again.

She leads her wolf to lie in front of the fire in her solar while she brushes out the tangles in her fur, murmuring sweet words to her, swearing that they shall never be parted again as Lady stares up at her reverently, wagging her tail and jolting forward now and then to lick at her face which makes Sansa laugh and reprimand her playfully.

It is thus that her husband finds her, having no doubt heard about the events of the day.

"Sansa," he says, stopping in the doorway. It is the first time she has seen him look uncertain.

"This is Lady, my direwolf," she says quickly, "I thought I lost her the same day I lost my father but she is returned to me. Can we keep her in the house? Please, Petyr, she is ever so well-behaved, I promise she is, I trained her myself and she has been good since the beginning, I swear it-"

"Sweetling," he says, pausing her frantic speech. He seems to take in a fortifying breath before he ventures closer. "I was told that your wolf protected you from some harridans at the market," he remarks.

"She did," Sansa says, rubbing her wolf's scruff as Lady pants happily. "This is Petyr," she tells Lady, "my husband. You must be as sweet for him as you are for me, and you must guard him too."

"I would be honoured to have such a fearsome guard," he says, gingerly holding out a hand and then looking pleased when Lady allows him to pet her and starts rubbing herself against his legs. "She is quite friendly, isn't she," he says as if he is slightly overwhelmed and Sansa smiles delightedly. "I should find her a proper collar," he adds, cupping a hand beneath Lady's chin. He has charmed her already, Sansa can tell. "Something jewelled perhaps."

"Oh, that would be wonderful. I used to braid ribbons for her collar. Arya used to mock me for it." She pauses and strokes down Lady's back as her wolf wags her tail frantically. "Petyr," she says, "will you help me search for my sister?"

"I've been searching for her already, sweetling."

"Do you think me foolish for believing that Arya still lives?" Sansa says, sinking into the couch, Lady flopping at her feet.

"No," he says standing by her side, brushing a thumb across her cheek. "If the crown had found her I would know. She is an important bargaining piece to them now, or shall be until you have children."

"I shall never have children," she reminds him sadly.

He kisses her on her forehead. "Yes, you shall, they shall be as much your children even though you did not bear them, I swear it. Now, I come with news. We are invited to the King's wedding to Lady Margaery."

"Ordered, you mean," Sansa says, "not invited."

"Just so," Petyr says wryly, rubbing his finger along his moustache.

"Someone should warn her before she weds him. Margaery was always kind to me," she says, though she can tell her voice lacks feeling. Bellena had cautioned her against those who appeared kind and friendly, and though Sansa has no reason to think Margaery did not mean her small kindnesses, neither is she foolish not to think that there were other motivations at play.

"She will have been told, her family will see to it that she is not harmed."

"How?" Sansa asks, feeling a twinge of envy that Margaery still _has_ all her family, that she was not isolated at court like Sansa was.

"Would you like to know a secret, Sansa," Petyr says, sitting next to her on the couch, encouraging her to sit in his lap in the manner he prefers.

He strokes his fingertips along her bared shoulders, plods kisses up her neck.

"Yes," she breathes, tilting her head back on his shoulder, clutching her arm around him.

"The secret is this: it shall not be a long marriage." She can feel his smirk against her skin, her stomach quivering at the hand that is now pulling up her skirts.

Lady has retreated to the room next door which is well for Sansa fears that her husband is about to ravish her here where all and sundry might walk in - and the idea is only inflaming her further.

She tries to think on what Petyr has said but she is ever so distracted and soon she forgets completely as his fingers work through the slick of her, his hand inside her smallclothes, and she muffles her cries in his shoulder as he calls her _sweetling, my little wife, sweet girl_.

"Will you tell me what you meant yesterday," she says to him as they finish breakfast in the courtyard the next day.

"Not here," he says, dabbing a cloth on his mouth and then leading her to his office and bolting the door from the inside.

"Well," he says, sitting behind his large desk, the wood polished and gleaming, all manner of scrolls and books and papers spread across it, "what do you think I meant?"

"He will marry again," she says, fingering a silver inkpot, "he will discard Margaery or Margaery may encounter an- an accident."

"A wise guess, but no."

She glances up at him. His hands are steepled before him and his smile is pleased. This is how he must appear when he is carrying out his Master of Coin duties, all knowing authority. Sansa finds that she likes it, that standing there in front of his desk makes something inside of her squirm. His eyes darken as if he knows.

"Something will happen to Joffrey," she says. Something that will mean his marriage will end and the only thing that might allow Margaery to be free of him is— "Petyr," she says, and leans across the desk. "Do you mean it? And why? Will it not be dangerous?"

He takes her hand, smooths his thumb over the back of it. "Why? Because he hurt you, sweetling. Because he is only growing more violent and unmanageable."

Her heart is beating very fast. "Have you done something like this before?" she asks. She had heard people gossip at court about him, using the nickname of Littlefinger, but he had been so kind and unassuming towards her that she had not paid it much mind. Yet such is his wealth that she knows it cannot all come from legal avenues, from being a fair and modest merchant.

Is it wrong of her not to care that he is dishonourable? She had quickly accepted that he was a brothel keep after all.

"Killed a king?" he says very quietly, breathing a laugh. "I have not."

She comes round to the other side of the desk. He pushes his chair back and shifts her to stand in front of him, her bottom perched on the edge of his desk. "You know what I meant," she says.

"I have schemed, I have played the game, yes."

Should she ask him for details, does she really want to know?

 _There are some questions that you should not ask of your husband unless you are prepared to hear the answers_ , Bellena had told her once.

"Am I part of the game?"

"We all are, sweetling," he says, standing up to kiss her, pulling her towards him with an arm around her waist. "Pieces or players," he murmurs, biting at her jaw. Then he pushes her back on the desk, swiping away his books and scrolls, and tugs her skirts up, and she tips her head back with a moan as he mouths over her smallclothes and uses a letterknife to rip them off so he can set his mouth to her cunt.

 

*

 

The wedding will be held in a moon's time but she is distracted from her worry and anticipation by news of a different type. For Petyr has told her that the deed has been done, that the ruse that she is pregnant must now begin.

He had asked her if she wished to be there, when the woman he had chosen - a northern girl with red hair - had his seed placed inside of her, but she refused. If she knew what the woman who bore her child looked like then she would search their face for reminders of her, instead of only seeing her husband. Besides, she still feels such shame over her inability to give Petyr proper heirs, and would only feel jealous.

Is it naive of her to trust he will not lay with this other woman? Perhaps, but one of his offices is inside a brothel so if she did not choose to trust him she would only go mad. Those times when they have walked through the city or spied once or twice on lovers at his brothels – for he asked her if she wished for further education and she quite readily agreed – he seems to have eyes only for her. He desired her from the first moment he met her, he has told her, and she feels the full weight of his attention every night, and morning, and hours stolen during the middle of the day too.

"You must appear to be pregnant and so you must gain weight," he tells her once she has wept a little at all the whirling emotions she feels, and as she sits on his lap on his large velvet couch.

"I must become fat and ugly, you mean," she says disgruntledly.

"Plump, _ripe_ ," he corrects. "I promise you that you could never look ugly."

"Will you still wish to lay with me when I am plump, husband?" she asks, studying his face, the little creases by the corners of his eyes, the flecks of grey in his moustache and beard.

"I will," he says with a wicked grin. "Now," he says, bouncing his leg so that she shifts in his lap and clutches his neck tighter, "I know that you like lemon cakes and candied almonds, but what other foods are your favourite?"

She tells him and he has the servants bring in platters for her, feeds her himself with his hands so that she is soon sucking syrup from his fingers, licking fruit juice and nibbling crumbs of cakes and pastries, while watching as his breath hitches, while feeling his hard cock against her behind.

"Is this another brothel trick?" she teases, rolling her hips in his lap and behaving most wantonly.

"It might be," he breathes.

"You wish to corrupt me further?" she asks, putting her hand over the bulge in his lap and making him groan.

"The simple pleasures of feeding one's wife are not something sordid, Sansa, really," he smirks, "perhaps it is you who is corrupting me, turning dinner into something lascivious, moving your bottom thusly."

"Apologies, husband, you're right, I should take my own seat," she says and slides off him as he growls and tries to pull her back.

She laughs and gets up from the couch and then races from the room, her mood giddy, getting hiccups from the thrill of it as he chases her and then she lets him catch her in their bedroom and he bundles her down onto the bed, and she laughs and squirms as he tells her that she is wicked to run from him, that now that he has caught her he shall ravish her.

He strips her of her clothes and she helps to strip him in turn and then she lies back breathlessly, his eyes roaming her form as she tries not to cover herself with her hands, still feeling shy, still marvelling that her body is something to desire.

He works her with his fingers, pausing to tug at his own cock, and then lies over her and encourages her to put her legs around him, notching his cock at the outside of her cunt. She has been stretching her sheath diligently, with Petyr's attentive assistance, and now it is possible for him to put at least half of his cock inside of her and when he does so it drives them both wild.

He groans as he enters her, pitching forward to kiss her, to stroke his tongue deep in her mouth. His movements are always careful when they do this, his thrusts slow. She has asked how she compares to other women, whether he would not like to be more forceful in his movements and he says that he would have been happy simply to sup at her cunt, that he desires no other but her.

Afterwards, as Sansa hides underneath the bedclothes, he has the servants bring in more food and he feeds her candied almonds and cheeses whilst sharing gossip from court that she delights in - which lord is tupping male whores, which lady is cuckolding her husband, which maiden is no longer a maiden even though she has yet to marry, and the odd things patrons to his brothels have lately requested.

 

*

 

On the morning of the king's wedding she is trussed in a gown in the colours of her husband's sigil with diamonds dripping from her wrists and fingers, gleaming from her hairnet. She wants to look her best for Joffrey's comeuppance; she cannot swing the sword like her father but she can look him in the face at his end.

She has been trembling all morning from fear and anticipation and when they take their places in the Sept of Baelor she clutches Petyr's hand tightly, not even caring about the people turning round to stare at her, to catch a glimpse of poor little barren Sansa Baelish and her upstart husband.

She ducks her head when Joffrey passes along the aisle but she knows he will no doubt have some horrible words for her at the feast afterwards. The train of Margaery's gown floats like a carpet of flowers as she glides past, smiling serenely, gazing at Joffrey as if he is a true prince and not a bastard of incest. Will she wear the same gown, and the same smile, for her second wedding to Prince Tommen, Sansa wonders.

After the ceremony, they proceed to the Red Keep. Sansa finds her steps stuttering as she enters through the gates, unable to shake the feeling that she is returning to her old life, that she will be whisked into the throne room and beaten by the Kingsguard.

Petyr murmurs reassurances. He does not seem perturbed at all with the plans he has set in motion, with the danger they will face if something goes wrong.

The feast begins with the guests lining up to be received by Joffrey and the new queen, to bow and simper, to smile as Joffrey insults them and Margaery doles out complements as if in recompense. If Petyr and Sansa did not join the others then Joffrey would surely notice and seek to chastise her further instead of the brief hellish moment she has been steeling herself for.

Joffrey looks viciously pleased to see her and she clutches her hands in her skirts as she curtseys deeply before him, Petyr bowing next to her.

"Your Grace," she says. "I wish you and Queen Margaery the happiest of marriages."

"Thank you, Lady Sansa," Margaery says with a warm smile. There is no hint on her face that she knows what is to come but Petyr has said that she may not have been told by her family, so that her reactions are for true.

"And how is married life treating you?" Joffrey asks, leering cruelly at the both of them. "You're certainly getting fat. But I don't remember you thanking me, Sansa, for letting you marry at all, for not sending the daughter of a traitor to live in a motherhouse. Well? Aren't you going to thank me?" he asks.

"Thank you, Your Grace," she says, curtseying so low she almost folds to the ground.

"Do you know, you were going to be betrothed to my uncle originally, that would have been a funny sight in the sept, him jumping up to cloak you. But I like this better, proper Sansa Stark married to a whoremonger." Joffrey leans closer, his voice still loud enough that many around them can hear. "Has he taught you whore's tricks yet? Tell me, since your cunt is broken, does he take you up the arse?"

She keeps her face serene, her thoughts fixed on what he would look like choking on his own life's blood. What she would not give for him to know that it was on her behalf that her husband was going to kill him.

Joffrey's sudden cackle of laughter makes her flinch but for once he is not laughing at her but at the man on stilts who has just fallen into a table laden with food. Taking advantage of the king's distraction, Petyr tugs her away by the hand, leading her to their seats with his other arm around her waist, as if he can protect her with his body from any further barbs.

"Drink this," he says to her when she has sat down, her body rigid, her mind blank, and she dutifully downs the whole cup of wine he hands her.

He kisses her on the temple. "Soon," he murmurs, "soon, my love."

To occupy her time she watches the royal table closely, trying to notice the moment the poison is transferred to the king's cup but in the end she only knows for sure that it has happened when Petyr takes her hand and squeezes it and she turns to see the slightest of smirks twitch his lips.

Joffrey stands up to make a speech, downing half his cup as he does so, and the moment he opens his mouth to speak he coughs.

He coughs again, he hits his chest and shakes his head.

He retches and coughs, he chokes, and now every person is on their feet, now Jaime Lannister is running over to try and help his son, now Joffrey is choking and burbling phlegm, blood oozing from his nose, now he is going blue, writhing and kicking, and now he is dead.

Sansa feels the last of the tension that her body has held since her father died slip away, her breath rushing out in a sigh.

Petyr pulses her hand in his grip and they share a look before turning their attention back to the maelstrom, to Cersei who is now blaming Tyrion, to Tywin who has himself gone purple with impotent rage, and to Margaery who has fainted clean away in her grandmother's arms.

"What a feast," Petyr murmurs as he takes her in his own arms, pretending to console her, and she hides her giddy smile in his shoulder.

Later, she and her husband have their own feast - he, on her cunt, which he sups on until she has peaked twice; she, on the platter of food that he feeds her afterwards as they lie naked and spent, sucking sugar syrups and berry juices from his fingers as the bells of the Red Keep continue to ring their dirge and a new king's coronation is planned.

 

*

 

"Do you prefer me fat, husband, was this all just a ruse?" Sansa asks one day in the fifth moon of her false pregnancy as she lies in bed after they have lain with one another, her hands skimming her new curves, the new soft pouch of her stomach.

Something about gaining weight, about her breasts swelling and her hips becoming more fleshy, reminds her of her own mother, makes her feel ripe and fecund for true. She dreams that she is with child and when she catches sight of herself in her new high-waisted gowns she marvels at how she looks. In the moons to come they will pad her gown further, rather than her attempting to gain that much weight, and she is glad because she is almost sick of lemon cakes though she had not thought that possible.

"No," he murmurs, feeding her a slice of peach, lapping up the juices that drip from her chin as she sucks on his fingers. "Although I am rather fond of these," he says lasciviously, cupping her breasts.

He has told her of special potions from Lys that will fill her breasts with milk for a moon or so, so that she may feed her child alongside the wet nurse, but it sounds like one miracle too far. She refrained from asking him if it was another brothel trick, though she saw the answer in his mirthful eyes anyway. The range of what people do in the bedchamber, of what they will pay for in a brothel, is staggering, and her husband seems to delight in endlessly shocking her, brushing the backs of his fingers down her blushing cheeks, murmuring filthy things in her ear when they are in public.

They spend more time at court now that Joffrey and his particular terrors are gone, although the crown is still at war with her brother and the North, so she is still an exile and still has to hear murmurs follow her along corridors of the Red Keep speaking of her family's treachery. Luckily, her rumoured condition has given the court something else to chatter about, as Petyr parades his clearly pregnant wife from feast to audience to turns about the gardens, a self-satisfied smile on his face, the envy of every other man who had wished to marry her plain. She is Robb's heir for true now and there are those who seem to wish to hedge their bets, making subtle overtures of friendship in sheltered spots of the gardens, extending invitations to dinners in private houses away from the Red Keep itself.

Every part of the future seems uncertain to Sansa except for the babe that grows in another woman's belly, the one she prays for each night and each morning, clinging to the hope that she will soon hold them in her arms, that her wish of motherhood will come true.

 

*

 

It is the talk of all the court, that little Sansa Baelish is round with child. Cersei finds it irritating, the girl is clearly just fat. She is no doubt eating her weight in cake in an attempt to keep her lowly husband from pawing at her but she should be thankful that any man wished to marry her at all.

Even her father looks troubled when the rumours are reported to him at the few small council meetings when the Master of the Coin is not in attendance, but he needn't worry, the other Stark girl will be found soon enough and he can marry her off to a Lannister to whelp some children.

"Thoughts on Littlefinger doing what other men could not and putting a babe in a wombless girl?" Tyrion asks her as they wait in the throne room for the court to arrive and listen to Tommen's pronouncements.

"Shut up, brother," she hisses.

"I'm just saying it's rather interesting, don't you think, that the maesters were so _sure_ that she was barren."

She sighs. He is such a loathsome brother, such a stain on their family.

"She certainly looks _ripe_ ," he remarks as the girl shuffles into the room, husband by her side.

She isn't ripe, she's fat, her teats almost spilling out of her gown as the men in the room stare at her like she is meat. Perhaps she will get so tired of her husband's charms that she will take up another lover, which will be a pleasing fall from grace for a Stark, Cersei thinks.

"She's fat."

"Fat with child," Tyrion retorts.

"A mummery, some trick of Littlefinger's," she murmurs.

"So you _do_ think she looks pregnant?"

Later, after Tommen has finished speaking – and he really needs to put more authority in his voice, she thinks, he is far too babied by that hateful witch of a wife – a murmur in the crowd draws her attention.

"Do you think that is faked?" Tyrion says delightedly as they stare at a red-cheeked Sansa who is attempting to hide the wet stains across the fabric covering her breasts. "I have never seen a barren woman spurt milk from her teats before."

"Shut up," Cersei hisses and looks over to Tywin who is gritting his teeth and looking furious.

"You told me that she was barren," her father says to her once the court has filed out, his countenance fury incarnate.

"I only reported what the maesters told me."

"They did their investigation at your say-so. I could have married her to a Lannister," he bites out.

"So get rid of Littlefinger then, and her babe," Cersei says with a wave of her hand, sipping on the wine her handmaid has brought her.

"Get rid of the most profitable Master of the Coin the crown has had for centuries? Do you put yourself forward to fill his boots?" He scoffs and grinds his jaw. "This is what comes from you thinking yourself a schemer. A barren girl has more idea of her place than you do. You are to marry again and whelp more children."

Over my dead body, she thinks, turning her lip up as she stalks off with her cup, wine spilling over her fingers, a trail of it in her wake.

 

*

 

When her first child is born, Sansa is waiting with her husband at the other end of the house to the birthing room. They are near the docks, in an unremarkable merchant house surrounded by the noise of warehouses and workshops but she can still hear the woman's groans and then the first wailing cries of the babe which have her jerking up to stand, clutching her hands together, tears already rolling down her cheeks.

Petyr waits just behind her and she is glad, for if he touched her she fears she might collapse in his arms.

Soon, there is a soft knock on the door and a veiled handmaid appears, a babe in her arms that Sansa takes from her with her heart in her throat, a whimpering sound trapped behind her teeth.

He is heavier than she thought he would be, her son. His face is red and wrinkled; his limbs plump and pleasing; his blue eyes, when they blink open, are like the pool underneath the heart tree in Winterfell, deep and unfathomable.

She sits down on the couch Petyr leads her to, unable to look away from the babe, stroking her fingertips down his cheeks, whispering sweet words of welcome to him.

"And the real mother, is she well?" she asks Petyr when some of her wits finally return to her.

"Yes, sweetling," he says, brushing her hair back from her face and kissing her forehead.

He has sworn that the woman is to be paid handsomely for her service, given a house and servants of her own. Sansa will say a prayer to the Mother for her each time she enters a sept and a prayer to the old gods too any time she stands before a heart tree.

"A son," she says, her happy tears catching in the corners of her smile. "Should you like to hold him, husband?" she asks, moving the babe carefully into his arms.

Petyr gazes down at him wondrously, touching a finger to his cheek. "What should you like to call him?" he says.

"Jasper," she says, for she knows that she cannot name him after any member of her traitorous family if she wants him to have any future here at court.

"A good northern name," he says.

"He shall have your hair," she says, leaning her head on her husband's shoulder, touching the light dusting of black hair on the babe's head, "and his father's cunning." She kisses Petyr and he clasps a hand at her neck, thumb stroking just behind her ear.

"He shall learn his sweet smiles from his mother, and her courage," he murmurs, which makes her cry again before she is distracted from her own emotions by a wail from her son. "Such a loud noise from such a small thing," Petyr says with a laugh, handing him to Sansa as she unlaces the front of her gown, eager to see for herself if she might feed him his first milk.

Petyr watches them both as his son roots around and takes her nipple, as Sansa winces at the first strange tug of milk and then feels a flood of peaceful contentment.

"Thank you, Petyr," she says, looking up, "I can never repay you for such happiness."

He tsk's gently and shifts closer, strokes his thumb over her cheek. "It is you who has made me happy, Sansa," he says.

 

*

 

Two weeks after the birth of her son, when her days are still full of wonder at the babe, when she is still learning the meaning of all his different cries, the news reaches her that her mother and brother are murdered, that the Boltons and the Freys have turned on the Starks in a massacre of unfathomable brutality.

Her grief is unbounded; her thoughts are a maelstrom.

That with every other Stark dead or missing, or sworn to be childless like Jon, her family's bloodline will die with her.

That Jasper will still be known as a Stark by all, that her house shall continue, a miracle Petyr has gifted her.

That now she has a son, she cannot imagine the pain of her mother who witnessed her own son's death, even as she also now understands why Catelyn had stood beside him throughout his campaign, why she had not taken refuge in a safer place.

That she desires revenge with a fury that almost frightens her.

 _You shall have it_ , her husband swears to her, when she tells him the last, _the north shall be yours and they will pay dearly._

 

***

 

The oath Petyr made was fulfilled and six years after her son's birth she now resides in Winterfell alongside her second son and first daughter, twins who had been only babes when the wheelhouses and wagons arrived at her family's keep which had been half rebuilt already thanks to her husband's generous funds.

The Boltons and the Freys had been defeated in battle, and Tully cousins now reside at the Twins, but it is not just the north that has seen an upheaval, for Westeros has shaken under wars of men and attacks from a monstrous army of the dead who were defeated by the miraculous reappearance of dragons. Queen Daenerys rules now, alongside her consort, Jon, Sansa's cousin, who was once her half-brother.

Sansa is the Wardeness of the North, her son's regent, and she and her husband are the Lord and Lady of Winterfell. The people of the north had not known what to think of Petyr when they arrived, though they had been pleased by the funds he poured into their lands, and Sansa had had to be his tutor for a change, for although he had grown up in the Riverlands there were some parts of the culture of the north that were foreign to him.

Yet even her tutoring would not turn him into a northern man. _Should I let my beard grow out like a wildling_ , he had said to her teasingly, _should I learn to fight with a longsword, down ale and turn my voice gruff, scorn songs and pretty things, make you dress in boiled wool?_ But her children help soothe any rift between Petyr and her bannerman - little Jasper, with the dark hair of the Starks, who is being taught to fight with his own small sword while Sansa looks on worriedly, listening to him babble afterwards about becoming a warrior someday even as she notices he enjoys his lessons with his father more than his lessons on the training field; little red-haired Robb who cries whenever he is lifted down from the back of a horse, begging to ride again, trying to climb on an ever-patient Lady and ride her instead; raven-haired Alayne with the beauty of her mother and her sweet temperament too, at least most of the time, for Sansa has noticed a hint of her father's cunning too, how she will perfectly time her fits of tears to receive the most lemon cakes from the cook, but then that is something that Sansa might have done once too, hiding her small ambitions in softness.

Her mother had taught her that there was little a mother would not do for her children, few lengths she would not go to; that there was a savage ferocity at the heart of motherhood. Sansa knows that she has made a bargain of sorts for this happy future, for these children of hers, that there are parts of her husband's past, his schemings, that it would do no good to probe, to dwell on.

She has told him to share with her anything he plots for the future, any plans that might affect her children; and she has made him swear that the woman who bore their children was not to be harmed, that he may send her off to Essos if he likes but that if Sansa hears that she has been hurt or worse, she will kill her husband herself while he sleeps, slip poison in his cup, slit his throat with his own dagger. For as thankful as she is to Petyr for giving her children, it is the mother alone who bore them, who made his plots possible.

She loves her husband – what he has done for her, how he loves her and protects her, the presents he gifts her, the pleasure he brings her, how he dotes on their children and how they adore him in turn. She sees him in her children, his smiles and his cleverness, his hidden tenderness. She defends him against those who scorn him, even if they are her own kin.

Arya returned to Winterfell but a few months ago, a woman now for true, beautiful but still with a touch of wildness. They had had a tearful reunion as Sansa ran across to the gates of the keep to embrace her, recognising her instantly.

Arya's sword-fighting teacher had spirited her away to Braavos, she said, though she would speak little of what she did there, except that she had lately married a Westerosi man, a bastard named Gendry, who arrived a few hours after her at Winterfell along with their belongings. The Stark bannermen had been displeased to learn of Arya's marriage but Sansa had quelled their outrage, reminding them that Arya had been believed dead, that Arya's bastard husband had helped save her, that now Arya might have sons and daughters who might marry their own sons and daughters. To soothe the last of their hurt pride, she asked Gendry to take the Stark name which he readily agreed to, and they had a second wedding in front of the heart tree with her sister wearing a proper gown Sansa had sewed rather than Arya's usual tunic and breeches.

Yet though she was happy to have Arya back, to live alongside her sister now that they were grown and no longer squabbled in the same silly way they did as children, she did not like the way she treated Petyr. Arya was suspicious of him, scornful, even as she delighted in spending time with her nephews and niece.

 _You were always good at pretending_ , she said to Sansa one night when she was deep in her cups, _at sticking your head in the sand_ , and Sansa bit her tongue on the things she wished to say in response. Arya had been abroad in Essos all this time and yes, she must have experienced horrors just like Sansa, but now she had sauntered back to a north Sansa and Petyr had won back and rebuilt. What use was there to look to the past now, to pick away at its foundations?

Sansa gifted Arya and her husband a keep of their own, lands and a portion of the Wolfswood. _It is only right that you be lady of your own keep_ , she said to Arya after she had announced it at a feast, _and have somewhere to raise your own family._  

 _Thank you, my lady_ , Arya had replied and curtseyed, and Sansa knew that she would see little of her sister now, that any hope of them being close as their mother had once wished was gone.

She is happier after Arya leaves, and she imagines Arya is happier too, with no sister to admonish her for her lack of manners, to try and truss her in gowns all the time.

Petyr is certainly happy to see the back of her, though he does not say it. _Perhaps your children will be closer than you were_ , he says instead as they dine in his solar one evening.

 _Perhaps Alayne will grow up to be just as wild and stubborn as her aunt,_ Sansa replies tartly, eating slices of a peach grown in the extended glass gardens her husband has had built.

 _You are not stubborn?_ he teases and she gets up from the couch in mock-outrage and he tugs her back down onto his lap, curls his arm around her waist, plodding kisses up her neck, sliding his hand beneath her skirts and making her whimper. _My sweet stubborn girl, my little wife_ , he croons as she pants and whines, working his fingers in the slick of her, and she twists in his lap to kiss him, hands scrabbling at the ties of his surcoat.

 

*

 

Petyr had heard, as all at court had, that the eldest Stark girl was beautiful, as pretty as her mother, sweet and courteous, everything a lady of her standing should be, a ripe prize for the man who might win her hand. He had also heard that she was likely barren, a rumour much discussed at court as the crown prince's betrothal lengthened, as Sansa remained sequestered in the north with her family.

Petyr made idle plans, pondered how he might find out for true whether or not she was barren, and then, when Lysa did as she had been encouraged to, and killed her poor husband, dear old Ned kindly brought his daughter along with him to King's Landing.

When Petyr first saw her he thought that the rumours had been a lie, for she was far more beautiful than her mother had ever been, sweeter and, he came to believe once he had spent some time watching her, more cunning too. He was enchanted with her, covetous, his dreams feverish.

Her lack of a womb was an odd gift from the gods to him - for were she fertile, he would not have been allowed to wed her, nor allowed to rule the north by her side, to have his children rule after him, and their children after them. If the Targaryen queen and her consort cannot have children, as it appears to be, then Petyr's child might even become Lord of the Seven Kingdoms one day - though he does not let himself dwell on this thought for long because it makes his breath short, his heart patter in his chest so excitedly he fears for his health.

He is ambitious like all men, desires for his line to continue on long after his death, but it is Sansa that is the true prize, the marvel he might thank the gods for if he believed in them. She is sweet, contrary, cunning, stubborn, lascivious, caring, tender and true. To see how she dotes on his children soothes some of the pain from the early loss of his mother; to see how she deploys her sweetness to curry the favour of others makes him proud to have helped her become such a schemer; to see her stride around her keep, proud and noble, with her wolf trotting beside her, and the stern way she treats those who seek to cross her makes his breath catch in his throat; to visit the crypts and stand before the likeness of Ned and all her Stark ancestors makes him feel a dark glee; and to see his wife writhe under him as he sups on her cunt in their bedchambers inflames him with an endless sweet agony.

There is a strangely selfish pleasure that none, not even her own children, have known her body as well as he, that he has not had to share her with babes that grow in her belly. Another selfish pleasure yet, that none will ever live again who have her eyes and the exact shade of her hair; that when she dies, old and happy, and likely some years after his own death, he will not have to imagine another her living in the world without him by her side.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please comment, I'd love to hear what people think! :)
> 
> my tumblr: [framboise-fics](http://framboise-fics.tumblr.com)
> 
> and there's a rebloggable photoset for this fic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/174077804072/four-years-into-sansas-betrothal-to-the-crown#notes)
> 
> This story came about because I'm fascinated by the topic of fertility/infertility in asoiaf and because I realised that Petyr's position as brothel keep would mean that he would likely know much more about women's sexual health than most, and be able to help Sansa fake a pregnancy too.
> 
> This version of Arya was saved by Syrio and spirited away to Braavos but, though she had lots of adventures there, she didn't train with the Faceless Men. Bran helped with the fight against the dead and became the Three-Eyed Raven, and if you want to imagine Rickon living happy and unaware on Skagos then feel free to do that!


End file.
